@bpeoples Actually, neandertals and humans are the same species, but different sub-species. The point of the question, however, is to gage the responses that many of TODAY’s societies will view this. People use ancient artifacts and ecofacts to justify their actions. One example is Moussolini. He used a lot of ancient Roman artifacts to associate himself with glory and whatnot. Also, I forgot his name (I should remember, I just had an anthro exam lol), but he was an Australian who moved to South Africa and used a discovery of human and animal bones to justify apartheid and naziism by claiming that humans were naturally violent. In fact, he was proven wrong and the bones were left by a leopard. The way that people view these discoveries can have a big influence on the world.

I don’t think this will affect anything: religion, beliefs or image of humanity. It happened long ago. We weren’t responsible. There has been cannibalism since then. It has often been something people did to celebrate a victory—eat the body of the leader that was conquered. There is only one bone, and interpreting this to mean it was a standard practice is quite a stretch.

And I agree with @daloon – I don’t see a relationship with belief systems or particular religions. There were numerous species belonging to the homo genus, like Homo rudolfensis, H. ergaster, H. georgicus, H. antecessor, H. cepranensis, H. rhodesiensis and H. floresiensis and many still remain under debate.

@susanc – We are a resilient species, but of course there’s no guarantee for the future. Yet we carry the potential to live on for many centuries to come. At some point when we cross certain thresholds we are probably talking millions or even billions of years. We can achieve this when we master widespread space colonization. I’m not kidding. The next 30 – 80 years are critical. Beyond that not even the sky is the limit.